She looked around the library first. Then, when she saw me alone at my table, she came straight over. I was staring in her direction, half in my scatterthoughts, half out, so I noticed her coming over without really making a move to acknowledge it.
“I have something for you,” she said, reaching into one of her textbooks. She was wearing dangling earrings, and I leaned to the left so they would bounce a little light my way.
“Here,” she said, putting a photo on the desk.
Every You, Every Me
“Where did you get that?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine Katie hanging out with a guy with a Mohawk. But for a second—a split second—I thought, Maybe it’s her. After all, she had a camera. She could’ve just asked some other girl to stand in for her, to throw me off. Or maybe you had somehow gotten to her. Maybe you were behind it all.
Katie sat down across from me.
“I knew you’d ask me that,” she said. “So here’s the thing—if you want me to tell you where I got it, you’re going to have to tell me why you need it.”
I didn’t trust her. She pushed her bangs behind her right ear and looked at me. I had to trust her. Waiting for an answer.
I thought: Ariel said you were one of the last girls to stop sleeping with her stuffed animals. She said you cared more about boys than girls. She said she missed you, but then she said she didn’t understand why.
“Somebody’s been leaving photos for me,” I said. “In my locker. Around. Whoever took this photo—she’s leaving photos for me.”
Katie tilted her head. “But why?”
“I don’t know why. If I knew why, do you think I’d be getting other people involved?”
“You’ve got to have an idea.…”
“I think it has to do with Ariel.”
This was the thing: None of us talked about you. Not months later. Not now.
For a moment, during her pause, my mind ran away and I was picturing Katie twenty years older, as an adult. Like we were sitting at some airport bar and had just seen each other for the first time in years. This was still what we were talking about. And then you were coming over to our table. You, older. But I couldn’t tell which one of us you were walking toward. Or if you were a ghost.
“What do you mean, it has to do with Ariel?” Katie asked.
“Some of the pictures are of Ariel. The photographer knew her. But I don’t know the photographer.” I matched Katie’s glance. “Unless I do.”
Katie shook her head. “It’s not me. But when you showed us that photo at lunch, it made me think of something.…”
“Where did you find the photo?”
Katie lowered her voice, as if this, of all the things that had just been said, was the biggest secret.
“It was submitted to the literary magazine,” she murmured. “About a week ago.”
I was close. So close.
“Who submitted it?” I asked, trying to remain calm.
“I don’t know. Submissions are anonymous.”
“What do you mean, submissions are anonymous? Someone must know who submits things.”
Katie leaned back. “Yeah, Mr. Rogers. But he keeps the list under lock and key.”
So close, but still not touching the wall.
I wanted to hit the table so hard that my hand would split all of its atoms. I wanted to cause breakage and explosions.
I slumped down in my chair, and Katie sat up, her whole body now dangling over me.
“Evan,” she said, “why do you always have to be so alone?”
I would have expected you to say this, or Fiona, or maybe even Jack, if he were angry. Not Katie.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Even after Ariel left us … you just wrapped yourself up in your pain, and the rest of us were all outside of it. I’m not saying you had no reason to be in pain—I’m not saying I was anywhere near as close to her as you were. But still. It’s like you and Jack have the monopoly on it, you know.”
“You thought she was a downer,” I reminded her.
Katie actually laughed at that. “She was a downer, some of the time. Hell, I’d even say most of the time. But there are things you don’t know, Evan.”
“Like what?” I tried to make it not sound like a challenge, but it was one, and it ended up sounding that way.
“I’m going to guess that you haven’t spent a lot of time in the girls’ room—have you?”
Did she really want me to answer?
“Well, you’d be surprised how much time Ariel spent in the girls’ room. Second floor, foreign language wing was her favorite, but she could also be found in first floor, math wing, and first floor, right off the gym. Not smoking. Not throwing up. Not doing what you usually do in there. No, she’d just be sitting in the stall. Sometimes with her music on, sometimes all quiet.
“We’d ask her what was wrong, and sometimes she’d answer, and sometimes she wouldn’t. Fiona tried real hard—we both did. One day I couldn’t take it anymore—it was obvious that she was just sitting there, and the locks are really easy to open from the outside, so I just let myself into her stall and closed the door again behind me. She wasn’t crying or anything—I could’ve dealt with crying. Instead she looked like she was arguing with herself. You could tell. And I told her she needed to get help. Like, serious help. I used to go to a therapist for some messed-up family things, and I told her I could go with her, or we could find someone else. But she said no. She didn’t get all into it—she didn’t try to defend herself or tell me there wasn’t anything wrong. She just said no. Then ‘Sorry, no.’ And that was it. I stood there, wanting something more. But she went back to wherever she was, and it was awkward to stay standing there, watching her. So I let myself out. And she stayed in there until after I left.
“That was the week before, Evan. It’s not like she didn’t know her options. She knew them. But she said no. Sorry, no.”
The week before. “The things you love are the things that will destroy you,” you’d said. And why hadn’t I heard? Was I so used to you making these pronouncements?
“She wanted help,” I found myself saying to Katie. Didn’t you? ANSWER ME. Didn’t you? “In the end. She wanted help.”
Katie took my hand in hers. “I know,” she said. “Which is why you did the right thing.”
I forced myself not to pull away, not to pull my hand back, not to run.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Holding Katie’s hand felt like betraying you, although I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t even sure why betraying you was something that mattered anymore.
“I’ll help you find the photographer,” Katie said. “If only so we can tell him or her to stop.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a her,” I said. If I hadn’t left the photos in Jack’s locker, I could’ve shown them to her.
Katie didn’t ask why. She just nodded and said, “Well, I’m going to tell Mr. Rogers I lost the photo, and when he takes out the list to see whose it is, I’m going to look over his shoulder. Or something like that. It shouldn’t take long.”
“Okay.”
“And, Evan, if you ever want to talk … I don’t always have to push my way into it.”
It was a joke, but there was an unintentional echo in the joke:
Hadn’t she pretty much told you the same thing?
16
Why wasn’t Jack talking to me? I looked for him during school, then after school, but I didn’t see him.
I went home and did my homework. I remembered how I used to define these times by the fact that I wasn’t with you—you were out with Jack, or doing something else. It didn’t even matter what it was, only that it wasn’t with me. And when we were together, I was at home in the universe.
Or was that just the way it seemed now?
I wondered if I should get help. I wondered if this was how you felt. I wondered if I was just trying to make myself feel what you felt. I wondered if you were somehow rewiring my mind.
No. I wasn’t wondering if you were somehow rewiring my mind. That was the kind of thing you would have said.
Zeros and ones. I willed my mind back to zeros and ones.
16A
At ten, Katie emailed. She hadn’t been able to talk to Mr. Rogers. She promised she’d try tomorrow.
16B
At eleven, Jack still hadn’t emailed or anything.
16C
At midnight—precisely at midnight—I received a new email.
It was from someone calling herself avengingariel.
you won’t get away with it.
I will haunt you forever.
There was an attachment. When I opened it, you filled the screen.
16D
Every You, Every Me
16E
You were looking right at me.
I broke.
Ariel, what did I do to you? What do you think I did to you? I always thought you were the strong one. I thought you could take anything. When you talked about the Truth, I thought you knew something that I didn’t. I was just following. I didn’t realize how bad it was. And then, when I saw how bad it was, I did the only thing I could do. You wanted help, didn’t you? But in a moment, you went from being grateful to being so angry. And that anger is what I’m left with. Because it makes me doubt, Ariel. It makes me doubt everything. And I wish you were here, because you’re the only one who can tell me what to do. Are you sending these photographs? Is this from you? Because I’m starting to understand. Really, I am. How maddening the Truth must have been. To think it’s out there, and to know you can’t get to it. We only see representations, not the real Truth. Was that what was wrong? Did that take over who you were? Ariel, you have to stop this. Ariel, I can’t take this. Ariel, all I ever did was love you. And if it didn’t work, I’m sorry. It was all I could do. You left me with no choice. YOU LEFT ME WITH NO CHOICE. Does that make sense to you, Ariel? Can you make sense anymore? Is sense any different from the Truth? I know it is. I know it is. You would tell me how unhappy you were, but I thought you meant at that moment. I didn’t realize how it fills you. Did it fill you, Ariel? Or is happiness another of the fake words? Ariel, I’m trying to understand. Ariel, you won’t go away. I couldn’t want you to go away even if it meant surviving. No. I want you to go away. I want this to stop. I miss you so much. Ariel, I know you can’t hear this. Are you listening?
I pressed my head into my pillow and I screamed. Pure sound. No words. But it all came out as your name to me.
My mother came running into my room.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. Then, again, “Evan? What’s wrong?”
She saw the photo on my computer.
“Oh, Evan,” she said. “Please.”
She tried. Everyone tried with me. And every time, it felt like the whole point of life was to see if trying was ever enough.
17
At five in the morning, there was another email from avengingariel. I wasn’t awake then, but I got it when I checked before school.
you were never worthy of her.